


for your information

by insistentbass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stuff follows John around, liquid on the soles of his feet, sticks his toes together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for your information

The guilt is palpable; it feels runny, greasy like oil rubbed between the pads of his fingers. The stuff follows John around, liquid on the soles of his feet, sticks his toes together.  
  
John doesn’t like it, doesn’t know why he actually feels this way. It’s not like he always tells Sherlock everything; he’s decorated the truth before and probably will again, but never over something so - what, _sensitive_? Something of high priority, at least.  
  
Irene Adler had _definitely_ been game changing. John was on the wrong side of jealous, then - not because of that small wicked kiss to Sherlock’s cheek (not wholly), but because Adler got in, she messed around, had John’s socially inept romance-avoiding friend wrapped around her slim fingers, for a while.  
  
Sherlock thinks she’s alive, so great, wonderful, right? Now they can get back to the normality of eyeballs in the egg tray and something that is _very_ probably a form of bodily fluid on the sofa. Except, John has lied on a bit of an epic scale, actually constructed a fake story with Mycroft behind his brother’s back, and that’s a little bit shitty, really. If the tables were turned and John was on the receiving end, Sherlock would already have a black eye by now.  
  
He’s with a woman tonight and it’s going well for once. There’s wine, decent pasta (not on the Angelo’s scale, but still) and laughing. Lots of glorious laughter. She’s pretty and more importantly _normal_ , which is just lovely. It’s easy to talk and John’s even managed to tell her about Afghanistan without his face contorting into some horrible mixture of regret and longing. Mary is a teacher, a writer (of published articles, not a laboriously typed blog) and has plenty to say about everything, and even _more_ time to listen.  
  
He doesn’t want to leave her. He wants to finish his meal, giggle and flirt in the taxi the entire journey back to her place, then angle her perfectly against the wall, kiss her until she can’t breathe. The guilt though, is still there. Instead of the steady mantra of deceit _,_ it’s now - _you’ve left him alone_. So John leaves after desert and coffee. Got an early shift, he says, is sorry and _means_ it.  
  
It’s frustrating - Sherlock is everywhere and nowhere and _all_ _the time_ , playing a line of Mendelssohn just on the brink of John’s subconscious. He wonders sometimes if it’s the same for him, if there’s a ghostly version of himself sat on an armchair somewhere in Sherlock’s Mind Palace, sipping tea and reading an out of date newspaper, looking completely out of place.  
  
Probably not, if he’s honest.  
  
Mary shares a taxi with him for half of the journey, and he spends the rest alone and wishing he wasn’t such a caring fool. It’s part of him though, his nature to understand and _learn_ the lines that other’s won’t dare to tread. Sherlock is a whole big mass of impenetrable knowledge and mysterious _stuff_ , that John just wants to chip away at until he finds the core, the nucleus, the frantically beating heart.  
  
John pays more for his fare than required, simply because he can’t be bothered fishing out the change. He takes the Baker Street stairs two a time - lord knows what kind of hideously exciting experiment lies waiting for him in the flat - and manages to catch his breath back before he steps inside.  
  
There’s no burning or other nose tingling smell. There’s no soft glow of the microscope or in fact _any_ source of light at all. There’s no _Sherlock_ ; only a hasty note in scribbly near unreadable handwriting.  
  
 _Gone out, case. FYI, need bread. - SH_  
  
There’s no case. John knows because Lestrade phones _him_ now - Sherlock is sporadic in the attention he pays to his phone, so John’s taken precedent as first point of contact for pretty much everything.  
  
It’s a lie. A taste of his own medicine, maybe, and John (being not quite so stupid) can read the stark and _painful_ subtext -  
  
 _Gone out, got bored. FYI, I will not wait for you._ _\- SH_  


  


  



End file.
